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The government votes against an inquiry into child sex abuse.

Aboriginal flags are flying at half mast this week, but for the wrong reason.

Flags shouldn’t have been lowered to mourn the fact that, on Saturday, 60 per cent of Australians did not support an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

They should instead have been lowered to mourn the outrage that, on Tuesday, fully 100 per cent of Government senators refused to support an inquiry into the sexual abuse of Indigenous children.

Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price, who moved the motion, said of the government’s disinterest:

“I’m horrified and disgusted.”

And so we all should be.

She continued:

“To ignore Indigenous children in this country who are suffering, generation after generation, from sexual abuse, is, I think, absolutely abhorrent.”

Outrageous

If ever you imagined there might be a cause for which our politicians could unite, it would be for an investigation about what ought to be done to arrest the sky-high incidents of child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities.

But while Liberal, National, One Nation and United Australia Party senators voted in favour of an inquiry, Labor and Greens senators voted against it.

The motion was defeated 26 to 31.

It makes you wonder just how committed Yes campaigners within government really were to addressing Indigenous disadvantage.

Pathetic.

NSW Labor Senator Tim Ayres, who voted against any investigation into the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children, claimed the proposal for an inquiry was a stunt.

“Like many of the interventions by those opposite, this is all about the politics and never about the solution.

“So another Royal Commission, another inquiry is not a solution.”

WA Greens Senator Dorinda Cox, herself an Indigenous woman, voted against an inquiry, saying:

“It will be dressed up to demonise our communities and culture, which has sustained us for tens of thousands of years.

“Our people are hurting right now… and I know some people on the other side of the chamber don’t care.”

It’s hard not to infer from that comment that Cox is more upset by the referendum result than by the abuse of kids.

And it’s difficult not to believe, if we take what she said at face value, that she is more protective of Aboriginal reputation than of Aboriginal children.

Surely not.

Identity Politics

As Price said:

“It’s not about the perpetrators. It’s actually about the victims.

“The victims who we’re talking about are Indigenous children. I don’t care who the perpetrator is, so long as they’re dealt with. Or what race the bloody perpetrator is.”

If there was even a sniff of a suggestion that Catholic priests were abusing children, God Himself wouldn’t be able to hold back the stampede of Labor and Greens senators demanding an inquiry.

Make of that what you will.

Price added:

“But we’re talking about Indigenous kids here. So they would rather protect the characters, protect the image of a group of people as opposed to protect the children.”

Australians were right to vote against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We already have a very good Indigenous Voice within Parliament.

If the government were really interested in closing the gap, they’d listen to the voice of Jacinta Price.

The problem, of course, is that Labor and the Greens (but I repeat myself) don’t seem all that interested in truth-telling — at least not of the truthy kind — because it doesn’t align with their black armband view of Australian history.

And so Aboriginal children will continue to be sexually abused, not for lack of a Voice, but for lack of a voice the Left is willing to hear.

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons